Sumter was also a symbol for Davis and his government as well. Davis was not interested in a peaceful resolution to the situation unless it included southern independence. This is evident by their boycott of the Washington Peace Conference called by Virginia. They sent commissioners to see Lincoln not, as you claim, to offer to pay for the federal facilities they had seized, but to get the Lincoln stamp of approval on the division of the country. And they began mustering an army of 100,000 men - over 5 times the size of the U.S. Army. Davis was also aware of the precarious position that the 7 confederate states were in. He needed Virginia and North Carolina and Tennessee desperately if his country was to survive. But he had a problem. Those states weren't buying his line of baloney. Letcher of Virginia and Johnson of Tennessee were the border south leaders and they supported staying with the Union. Letcher, in fact, was the organizer of the Peace Conference that Davis blew off. Davis needed a spark to ignite a war that he believed - rightly as it turned out - would cause the wavering border south states to come over to the confederate side. He needed a war as badly, or even more so, than you claim Lincoln did.
One voice of reason in all this was Robert Toombs, confederate secretary of state, who warned Davis against his actions. Toombs pointed out, "Friring on that fort will inagurate a civil war greater than any the world has yet seen...At this time it is suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend at the North...It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal." If Toombs could see that then why couldn't Davis? Or was it because Davis DID see that and didn't care? He needed war more than he needed Toombs. Why did Toombs believe that it wasn't necessary, seeming to agree with me that the confederates could wait Lincoln out without fear of jeopardizing their security? Why was Toombs afraid about alienating Northern friends while Davis couldn't have cared less? Why indeed, unless Davis only wanted war?
Why is it that I have the strange feeling that in your mind "calling it what it was" is also identical to your position in this argument?
Fort Sumter was a federal Army post located in Charleston harbor. It was built on a man-made island, funded out of the U.S. treasury, and manned by U.S. Army troops.
That's nice and all, but still beside the point. The point of the matter was that the north had absolutely no reason to be there other than one, that being the use of the port to obstruct entrance into a port that was not theirs. If you can demonstrate any other purpose, other than obstruction of the harbor, for maintaining a northern garrison at the entrance of a southern harbor 3 states away from the nearest northern border at a time when hostilities existed between the two, please do so.
By the time that Lincoln was inagurated it was also one of two federal posts that the south had not siezed.
Hence the issue surrounding it...
As such, and given the public statements that Lincoln had been making ever since South Carolina rebelled, Lincoln had little choice in the matter.
In other words, since Lincoln had made a speech or two saying he wouldn't give up Sumter, he therefore had no option to give up sumter? Sorry, but simple speeches are not written in stone, especially for politicians like Lincoln. And if the matter was not as clear cut as lincoln asserted it to be in his speech, he never should have taken the position in the first place. Simply put, your argument that Lincoln was somehow "bound" to retain sumter because of a speech he made pledging to do so is in itself absurd. There was absolutely nothing preventing Lincoln from altering his position...other than a desire to provoke the confederates into attacking a northern garrison that should not have been there in the first place.
He could either allow the rebellion to succeed or hang on to Sumter by whatever means necessary.
So the loss of a simple fort by Lincoln would have meant the success of secession? If that is the case and secession's success hinged entirely on who controlled fort sumter, why didn't secession suceed a few days later when the fort was surrendered?
Sumter was also a symbol for Davis and his government as well. Davis was not interested in a peaceful resolution to the situation unless it included southern independence.
Considering that Davis believed that independence to be a political right of his state and others who chose to do so, i suppose you are correct. But on the flip side, it could also be said that Sumter was a symbol for Lincoln, and that Lincoln was not interested in a peaceful resolution to the situation unless it included the complete submission of the southern part of the country to a political situation completely opposite of the one that they had democratically chosen, that being to cease its political affiliation with lincoln's part of the country.
This is evident by their boycott of the Washington Peace Conference called by Virginia. They sent commissioners to see Lincoln not, as you claim, to offer to pay for the federal facilities they had seized You are constructing a straw man. I never claimed that south carolina specifically sent commissioners to the washington peace conference to pay for federal facilities. I simply noted the fact that on repeated occasions during secession, various federal lands were offered to be compensated for.
And they began mustering an army of 100,000 men - over 5 times the size of the U.S. Army.
Can you blame them considering that Lincoln was basically telling them that they could not govern themselves independently of him even though they had democratically chosen to do so, and was simultaneously threatening to forcefully prevent them from doing so if they tried?
In addition, I find your presentation of the secession events to be extremely one-sided. For you to assert that Davis sought a war for X reason, you must at least simultaneously acknowledge that Lincoln's uncompromisable positions in no way helped the situation and in fact further provoked the south. I will similarly concede that my own position is biased towards the south, but in the very least I can recognize that the south took the bait for war. So yes, they too were itching for war. But no less so than Lincoln, who actively provoked them into it.